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“Every man has his breaking point.” Falcon nodded like he understood. “Must have been bad.”
“Was.” I barely suppressed a shudder. What we’d done to Hammer… Yeah. He deserved what we did and worse, but I had no idea if I could have done it by myself. If any of us could have. The men of Iron Tzars were pretty hardened and used to torture, but Hammer had been subjected to a special kind of hell. While it made my stomach roil, I still regretted none of it. “Ain’t goin’ over what we did so don’t ask. Like I said. He wasn’t in one -- or even a few -- pieces when we finished.
“So. We have a few things to discover. First, I want a rundown of Hammer’s movements, Crush. I want to know where he was every second of every day in the weeks leading up to him and Scarlet leaving. You can’t find a pattern or a person of interest, go back further.” I gave my intel officer a hard look. “I want everything. And I mean everything. No matter how trivial you think it is.”
“Maybe Hammer was fuckin’ with you.” Spike spoke up again. “Maybe he just wanted you to think there was a problem in the ranks.”
“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Falcon agreed. “He’s a wily son of a bitch.”
“Was.” I grunted. “And I get your point. But trust me when I say he was in no shape to make that kind of story convincing. All he could do was withhold information. Which he steadfastly did. Even when he was screaming. No. he had someone prepared to make good on his threat. Probably part of the reason he wanted to leave town. It gave him free rein to hurt Scarlet while distancing himself from any violence toward the girls. At least, I hope so. If not, then he was a truly evil man. And if there’s one person that evil in our midst, there could be more. We’re a secretive lot by nature, so this hurts in ways we’ve not even considered before.”
“On it, Prez,” Crush said softly. “I’ll get Byte to help, if you’re good with that.”
I thought about Byte. He was younger than Crush by close to ten years and fresh out of the CIA. He’d put in his time and that time hadn’t been kind to him. He’d also been on more than one mission with Hammer. “He gonna have a problem with this? I know Byte and Hammer were close.”
“They weren’t.” Crush snorted. “Hammer was an asshole in the extreme. Byte tolerated him because he was part of the club, but I know Byte can absolutely believe this of him. I certainly do.”
“Fuckin’ little pissants. Both’a you,” Spike muttered.
“Spike, you’re out of this meeting.” I had to take a stand on this if we were going to ferret out who was working with Hammer. “Listen up, people.” I put as much hard authority as I could in my voice. “I know Hammer is guilty. That’s not up for debate. What I’m interested in is finding out who was working with the son of a bitch. If your loyalty is to him, you need to get the fuck out.” I turned to the now fuming Spike. “You’re confined to quarters until further notice. I’ll have food prepared and sent up by officers I trust.”
“Come the fuck on, Prez! You might have had time to process this, but I don’t remember a single fuckin’ thing that would lead me to believe Hammer was capable of harming a kid. Not one.”
“You can process it in your quarters.”
“Fuck!” Spike smacked the back of the chair, tipping it over, and stormed out of the room.
“Anyone else?”
There were a few grumbles but nothing overt. I could see Crush noting every single one of them mentally, too. Crush was the more unbiased of the two, but Byte would be fine. Crush would keep him focused on the right thing. It was the way they worked. While Byte was the better investigator, Crush could keep his personal feelings out of the work. I figured it came with age.
“Good. No one is exempt from this investigation, Crush. Even me. I want to know everyone Hammer had contact with and to what extent. I absolutely will not have anyone in this club who is willing to harm a woman in our care unless there is a fuckin’ good reason, or willing to harm a child for any fuckin’ reason.”
“Understood.” Crush shook his head slightly, closing his eyes and taking a breath. I got it. He kept an eye on things most of us would prefer to be kept quiet, but this was a whole different level of spying on his brothers. It set him apart and now he was including Byte. No one blamed Crush for what he had to do. Not really. But it was still damned uncomfortable to know he knew some of the darkest secrets some of them had. He would never mention anything to anyone else, and he only talked to me if he deemed the situation a security risk. This was something else entirely, and we all knew it. Thing was, of all of us, I trusted Crush the most. He was the only one who ever willingly came to me with issues of his own. He said if he could know everyone’s private business in the club, I could know his.
“Good. You two get on it. I want a detailed report every twelve hours, or anytime you find something important.” I gave the room a hard stare, daring anyone to go against me.
“Don’t you think that’s an invasion of privacy, Prez?” The kid, Jackhammer -- yeah, wasn’t touching that one -- raised a finger in the air. He had an innocent, dumb expression on his face I would have found adorably naive and laughed it off in any other circumstance. Given the situation, though, I was less than amused.
“No. You done somethin’ you don’t want Crush to find out?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Well, yeah, actually. Don’t we all?” There were some grunted assents and some scowls thrown the kid’s way. Looked like the club was solidly divided on this one.
“Tough shit.” I grinned, but knew that smile didn’t reach my eyes. “He’s investigating me too. And yeah. I got my own fuckin’ secrets. The only people who will know everything are Crush, Byte, and me. You don’t like it? You can leave.” I let my mask of civility drop so everyone in the meeting could see how serious and fucking furious I was. “But rest assured. I will find out who was working with Hammer, whether he’s here or not. And I will annihilate them, whether or not they’re still part of this club.”
Having said my piece and given my orders, I left the meeting room to go to the front gate and await the Iron Tzars contingent. And… her. Because I knew there was no way Scarlet would come back to Grim Road without Lemon. I was anxious to see how Lemon dealt with this bunch. I had a feeling fireworks were about to fly. I wouldn’t interfere, but I was damned sure going to enjoy the show.
Chapter Two
Lemon
I’ve heard that sometimes you just know when your life’s about to change. As we rolled into the Grim Road compound, I got that feeling. It was a strange sense of foreboding and anticipation. And I was pretty sure I knew who it was centered around. But I didn’t even like the bastard, so I chose to ignore that inner voice. My inner voice was stupid anyway.
The only fucking reason I’d come to this stupid place was to support Scarlet and to make sure her sisters, Sunshine and Rainbow, knew they had someone watching their backs. Well, other than some of the men. I suppose I trusted most of them in Iron Tzars, but I’d rather a woman had my back. So I wanted them to know I had theirs. Also, I knew this was probably going to be a special kind of hell for Scarlet. While her man, Mars, was with us, I was Scarlet’s best friend. There was no way she was facing this alone.
When the two big Excursions pulled into the compound of Grim Road, a group of big, hard-looking men waved us through and two more men on bikes escorted us to what I thought was the center of the place. Scarlet had told me it was where the old ladies and children lived, though there weren’t many people there. Mostly just her and her sisters and a couple of women who were steady lays of the men. I was sure Dani wouldn’t want me to know about steady lays, but I wasn’t a kid. Not in any meaningful way. I let Dani think she took care of me and Apple, but it was really me taking care of them.
“Stay here until I tell you two to come out.” Mars was gentle when he spoke, but it was for Scarlet. The look he gave me said I better keep her in the vehicle at all costs. When I looked out of the window at the big men surrounding the truck, the very last thing I wanted to do was disobey Mars. Not because I was afraid, but because if things went south, it would be up to me to protect Scarlet.
